Day 18 - Favourite title sequence
Jun. 24th, 2010 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianI've given this one a fair bit of thought, as mitchy brought it up last night and it caused a bit of debate. To be fair, I don't watch a lot of title sequences because I watch a lot of my shows on DVD and can easily skip them. Being able to skip the viewing of the same title sequence once every forty minutes or so when one's mainlining a TV show is important to one's sanity.
I admit to adoring the Doctor Who title sequence, but I also admit that a) I mostly had the love for the S1-S4 version (I'm a little 'meh' about the current season's) and b) it's mostly down to the music. I can't really pick a favourite title sequence based solely on the music. If I was simply going for music and artistry, I'd probably pick Carnivale's entry sequence, based on the fact that while it doesn't necessarily give you much of a clue as to what the show's about, it's very good at giving you the mood of the piece. The pictures set a timeline while the audio gives an impression of ominousness.
Objectively speaking, though, the best title sequence I've ever seen is the one on Burn Notice. Not only does it manage to give every bit of background on the show that you could ever need without being overly wordy, not only does it introduce the main characters in a fairly unobtrusive way, but it also fits in with the tone of the show so well that it doesn't necessarily stand out as a 'title sequence'. Nice and unobtrusive, yet still serving the function of a title sequence, and then some. That makes it more watchable than the average title sequence to me. And in the interest of fairness, those criteria put Farscape as a close second for me; Burn Notice only wins by virtue of being a little better at character introduction. I like the Farscape title theme music very much.
mitchy brought it up last night and it caused a bit of debate. To be fair, I don't watch a lot of title sequences because I watch a lot of my shows on DVD and can easily skip them. Being able to skip the viewing of the same title sequence once every forty minutes or so when one's mainlining a TV show is important to one's sanity.I admit to adoring the Doctor Who title sequence, but I also admit that a) I mostly had the love for the S1-S4 version (I'm a little 'meh' about the current season's) and b) it's mostly down to the music. I can't really pick a favourite title sequence based solely on the music. If I was simply going for music and artistry, I'd probably pick Carnivale's entry sequence, based on the fact that while it doesn't necessarily give you much of a clue as to what the show's about, it's very good at giving you the mood of the piece. The pictures set a timeline while the audio gives an impression of ominousness.
Objectively speaking, though, the best title sequence I've ever seen is the one on Burn Notice. Not only does it manage to give every bit of background on the show that you could ever need without being overly wordy, not only does it introduce the main characters in a fairly unobtrusive way, but it also fits in with the tone of the show so well that it doesn't necessarily stand out as a 'title sequence'. Nice and unobtrusive, yet still serving the function of a title sequence, and then some. That makes it more watchable than the average title sequence to me. And in the interest of fairness, those criteria put Farscape as a close second for me; Burn Notice only wins by virtue of being a little better at character introduction. I like the Farscape title theme music very much.